Friday, April 1, 2011

Day 4: Hedging the future on the backs of public employees

As Reef and I drove around today, I had a day off thanks to what I can only assume was one of my furlough days, we listened to NPR and from that we heard a topic we just couldn't ignore...

Today on Air Talk Larry Mantle was discussing Governor Brown's plan to negotiate pension reforms with the state's public employees. These pensions must be negotiated because the state cannot afford to make the payouts to employees that would be required down the road. Many Republicans would argue that this due to the fact that unions have been greedy and negotiated unreasonable pensions over the last decade, but it is really mostly due to the fact that the pension money of the employees was poorly invested in what was seen as an unsinkable stock market that then sank. I'm sure someone will eventually find a way to link the collapse of the stock market to public employees as well but they just haven't been able to connect the dots as of yet. Most problems with the economy these days are our fault it seems. No one would want to blame bankers or executives working in the private sector. They never cost the government any money.

The financial situation of the states, and the federal government for that matter, can't have anything to do with the fact that companies like GE make billions of dollars in profits each year and pay nothing, I repeat nothing, in taxes. It certainly couldn't have anything to do with the hedge fund managers that find themselves listed on the "rich list". This a list of the top 25 hedge fund managers in 2010 who personally pocketed over 22 billion dollars collectively over the last year. This is not their company profits, but their personal earnings. The gentleman who was number one on the list made over 4 billion dollars for himself last year.

I am not trying to begrudge these people the money they apparently earn each year. Good career choice I suppose. My point is simply that perhaps starting our search for a place to begin cuts to help the financial solvency issues facing our country is not with the public employees. Maybe it isn't the teachers, police officers, firemen, or government office employees that are taking home so much money and benefits that the county is unable to support their lavish lifestyles.

Who am I though? I'm just one of those greedy public employees whose salary and benefits are so expensive that they have to be let go. Does anyone know a good hedge fund that is hiring?

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